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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Happy Birthday, Baby E!

And now, a few words in honor of Baby E's nativity....Baby E, in what some have assured me is typical second/younger child fashion, is a much more even-keeled child than his more volatile brother. E's favorite activities lately are eating, smiling, laughing, and interacting with anyone who looks his way. He recently made up a game in which he yells something at a person nearby, waits for them to respond, and then giggles uproariously until he decides it's time to yell at the person again and start over. He can keep this sort of thing up for hours, if you'll let him. Baby E's current dislikes include sleeping through the night (he WAS a good sleeper at one point and is still a champion napper, but a round of illnesses has left him wanting to be cuddled throughout the night), not being able to keep up with his brother J, and the evening hours between dinner and his beloved bath time.

Baby E's most salient features are his size (still large and in charge), his ready smile, and his curly brown hair. He is a charmer, always flashing his smile at any and everyone and basking in their attention. He is also quite loud, perhaps in hopes of competing with an older chatterbox. E's temperament is much more calm than his brother, but when E gets upset, he doesn't hesitate to let us know, often vigorously. He also likes to joke. E's favorite joke at the moment is hurrying away as soon as anyone calls his name, looking over his shoulder and laughing the whole time. Actually, he is quite an independent child, who is already playing on his own and with others. He thinks nothing of scooting off to explore parts known and unknown on his own.

Yes, E is a scooter. He has and still does eschew crawling, preferring to motor along on his tush in his own brand of motion. He is also now cruising around holding on to furniture, and he does occasionally push from his tush onto all fours, so we're holding our breath to see which comes first, crawling or walking. His motor skills help him in one of his other favorite activities, finding ways to kill himself. I swear that E has some sort of death wish! With this child I have had to call poison control twice already to discuss something he ingested, and I am constantly fishing all sorts of inedible tidbits out of his mouth. The other day I found a penny in his poopy diaper. When did that go down, I wonder, and how many more will I find? I have also had to put locks on the toilets and the bathroom doors to prevent E from hurling himself headfirst into the potty, as he has attempted to do numerous times already. His current way of courting death involves watching and waiting for the screen door not to close all the way, so he can scoot out onto the front porch and then hurl himself headfirst down the brick stairs! This kid is relentless!

Despite his penchant for danger, we have come a long way this past year, particularly in the past few months, during which we've seen him take huge developmental strides. Besides learning to stand up and sit down and scoot, in the past two months or so, E has also taught himself to clap, wave bye bye, and point to his tummy. Over the past year, he has cut eight teeth, to which he added two new molars this week. He has also learned to devour macaroni and cheese and as many solid foods as we will let him have and any others he can swipe from J's plates. E likes just about every food, though his favorites are meat of any kind, whole peas, pretzel sticks, mandarin oranges, and strawberries. He does NOT like apricots, thank you very much, and he's not so sure about mangoes or avocados. He loved drinking the dregs of J's juice boxes until he scratched his cornea with a wayward straw last week and was banned from juice boxes until he develops a bit more motor control! And he's a big fan of sippy cups but prefers to hold them exclusively with his mouth and teeth and then let the contents pour down his neck in lieu of actually swallowing them.

All in all, it has been a great year with E. He is a fun baby, a happy boy, a born entertainer with a thick skin and sunny disposition. He is so much fun to have around, and I'm happy he's come to live with us and share his funny little personality. I love him bunches and bunches!

4 comments:

Hope little E had a great birthday! I love him! :) And yes, Gavin's still struggling to swallow a gulp of apples I gave him two minutes ago. He's clearly not ready yet. Thank you for being my go to person for stuff! I wouldn't know who to ask if I didn't have you!

Love the series of photos at the end! I hope you are backing up your blog periodically, by the way. Isa continues to be large and in charge too -- it's always a topic at the ped. I think she'll thin out after a few more months of walking.